Japan Day 2: Kamakura

So for day two we went to Kamakura, a shrine about an hour south of Tokyo. It is full of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.


At one of stops along the way to Kamakura, we walked through Engaku-ji with some interesting buildings and gardens. One of the nice parts of the walk though was at the top of the hill was a tea house where we got traditional green tea (maccha) and tried to wait out a rain storm. Unfortunately, the rain didn't really stop. Fortunately, the tea house had extra umbrellas and insisted that we use them to get to the bottom of the hill again.



We stopped at the Great Buddha as well. History lesson from wikipedia: Kōtoku-in, with its monumental outdoor bronze statue of Amida Buddha, is the most famous. A 15th century tsunami destroyed the temple that once housed the Great Buddha, but the statue survived and has remained outdoors ever since.

 Then we continued on to our final destination (arriving just before it closed) at Hase-dera. More from wikipedia on the statues in the picture below that was taken at Hase-dera: The grounds of the temple are home to hundreds of small Jizō statues, placed by parents mourning offspring lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. These statues remain in place for about a year, before being removed to make way for more statues; it is estimated that some 50,000 Jizō statues have been placed at Hase-dera since WWII^[2].

The temple is built on two levels and also includes an underground cave. The cave, called benten kutsu cave, contains a long winding tunnel with a low ceiling and various statues and devotionals to Benzaiten, the sea goddess and the only female of the Seven Lucky Gods in Japanese mythology. This is the entrance to the cave.

Our journey ended that day with walking around Shinjuku and admiring all of the neon lights and activity going on. We found a tempura (天ぷら) restaurant for dinner and feasted on deliciousness. Tempura is lightly battered vegetable, seafood and sometimes chicken and is served with a dipping sauce. Or sometimes they are served in bowls of ramen or udon soups.

 That was day two! We were getting tired already and the journey was just beginning!